Amy Finkelstein dropping it hot to young economists: "Do not reject your own paper! Let an editor do it. If you have rejection experiences, that's already half the battle won. Too many people don't submit their papers, especially the job market paper." https://twitter.com/AEACSWEP/status/1324753669431185408

*Everybody* gets rejected. Really. First paper she wrote with her adviser Jim Porteba was rejected. Take a week to sulk and complain with co authors, be honest about what you can or cannot do, then get it back out.

What makes a great short paper: has ONE key point you're trying to make that doesn't require a lot of buildup to make the key point.

AER Insights was founded to address the problem of length: econ papers are too long and review process is too long. AERI limits to 6000 words, median response 75 days: reject or conditional accept. No R&Rs

"Imitation is best form of flattery." More journals adopting same format: journal of public econ, review of econ and stats, economic journal, journal urban econ.

For referees: focus on big picture. Also, if you think paper super important for literature, explain why. If you think it's not adding much given other papers in literature, cite which papers exist. Editor is not always expert in subfield so bring your knowledge and experience

The Reject / Cond accept can be double edged sword. Editor will reject any paper, that has anything he/ she is not confident can certainly be addressed e.g. Won't ask for robustness or generalization. Means many false negatives: high potential papers end up rejected.

I wonder what this means for best strategy. Submit first to other top journals to see what the "bar" is for your paper/ common concerns and then bring revised version to AERI? But doesn't that defeat purpose of short turnaround times? Plus substantial editing to shorten?

Very informative session. Really appreciated Amy's great sense of humor and kind advice. Many thanks to @EmilyNix100 and Vicki Bogan for excellent moderating and @AEACSWEP @anusha_chari @judy_chevalier for organizing